448

I am not a way at all, I am just a presence. You have to understand it because you are going to be with me. You have to understand it as deeply as possible.

I am not a way. A way leads you somewhere, it connects you with the there, and my whole effort is to bring you here. A way is there-oriented, and I am here-oriented. A way is needed if the goal is far away from you. If the goal is away, distant, then the way is needed.

As I see it, the goal is within you; you are the goal, you are the target. So there is nowhere to go, a way is not needed. In fact, dropping all the ways, dropping the very search and just being yourself is enough. Because you cannot do that, you have to be shown a few ways to walk and get tired. That is just to exhaust you.

The whole effort is to exhaust you. When the effort is exhausted and you are really tired and you fall down, and you say, “Now I don’t want to go anywhere,” and you relax, you reach. Seeking is not the way to reach, but seeking is needed because you are very active.

Even to reach God, ways are needed – and God is herenow. He is your surround, he is within you and without. It is as foolish as a fish seeking the ocean and living already in the ocean. You are in truth because there is no other way; only in truth can you be. You may have forgotten it, or you may not be able to recognize it because it is so obvious. It is so close that there is no distance to see it – distance is needed to have a perspective, you cannot see things from very close. And God is not only close, he is not only the closest – he is you. God is not a “seen,” he is in the seer; and God is not a goal, he is in the seeker. The seeker is the sought.

So I am not a way. I talk about ways because you are mad. I talk about medicines because you are ill, and you cannot understand the vision of no-way. You will have to walk, seek, get frustrated. When I say there are two ways, I mean there are two ways to get frustrated. One is of love, and another is of meditation.

But I am not a way. I am just a presence. And those who will understand me will not need anything more than just being with me. That’s what in the East we call satsang – just being with me, just being in my presence, just relaxing in my presence, just allowing me to enter you, not resisting, not fighting with me.

And suddenly one day you will start dancing, singing, celebrating. One day suddenly you will start laughing. What were you seeking? You were seeking yourself. How can you seek yourself? You are already that.

The questioner says: [I feel that the word God has no heartfelt potential…]

- I know it. Theologians have killed it. They have killed a very beautiful word, God. Jews were right because they were very reluctant to call the name of God in any way. They were very reluctant. They were right because if you use the name of God, too much use will destroy its beauty. Before Jesus, Jews were not allowed to utter the name of God. Even now, if you look in Jewish books, and if they write God, they don’t write G-o-d. They simply write G-d; they leave out the o. Because how can you pronounce his name in totality? He is so big. Whatsoever you call him is going to be incomplete, so they write G-d, not G-o-d – the o is left out. And it is good that they leave out o. O is the symbol of emptiness, shunya. O is void, zero. That is the very soul of God, o, zero, that is his very being – so they leave it out.

For many centuries only the high priest in the temple of Jerusalem was allowed to utter the name of God, and that too only once in a year, and that too in total aloneness. People would wait, millions of people would wait together outside the temple. Then the high priest would go into the innermost shrine, all the doors would be closed, nobody will be able to hear, and there, in the innermost shrine, he would whisper the name. That’s all.

It was good because words like God, love, should not be used too much otherwise their beauty is lost.

Theologians killed the beautiful word God. Now it is almost ugly, it is almost vulgar. How theologians have killed it has to be understood. Each of you has a theologian inside. You have been conditioned for so many centuries that the theologian has almost become a part of you. God is wild, has to be, but the theologian is always afraid of the wild God, the theologian is always afraid of anything alive. So by and by he cuts out all wildness from God. He polishes, trains, and conditions the very word God.

If you go to the old scriptures of the world, God was wild, as wild as you can imagine. He used to be angry also; he used to fall in love also; he used to run after women also. He was very human, down-to-earth, and very alive, throbbing and kicking. But then it was not acceptable to the theologians because it was difficult to categorize him, and it was difficult to use him. So by and by, limb by limb, they destroyed God. Now only a mummy, a dead body, exists preserved by chemicals in churches. Churches are the tombs of God where God has died. They made God more and more far away from man because it was impossible for their egos to understand that God could be in any way related to man. The creator and the created, the creator and the creature, how can they be related? No! The creator is far away in the seventh heaven, and we are just like worms crawling on the earth, sinners asking to be forgiven. They condemned man, and they went on raising God higher and higher. A moment came when the bridge broke.

It is so simple to see that the creator has to be related with the creation. A poet is deeply related with his poetry, has to be so, he loves his poetry. A painter is deeply related with his painting – it is his life, his flowering, his expression. A sculptor loves the statue he has made. Watch a sculptor when he has finished a statue, how he touches and feels it – almost as if it is the girl of his dreams, his beloved. Watch a sculptor when in difficult circumstances, he has to sell his artwork. Tears come to his eyes.

If God is the creator, he has to be close to creation, he has to be deeply in love with his creation. But then you cannot condemn man, and then you cannot make man feel guilty. And if you cannot force man to feel guilty, then churches cannot exist, then their whole business disappears. The whole business of the church exists only if you are guilty. Because of your guilt, you need their help; because of your guilt, you need salvation.

If God is already close to you, and if God is already breathing in you, singing in your heart, then what is the need of any salvation? If God has created you, then how can you be sinners? Then you cannot be condemned, the signature of God is on you. But then the whole business of religion disappears. So they went on making God more and more clinical. Now he smells almost like a hospital – no life but everything clean. They became so afraid of the germs of life that they killed all the germs. But God also is killed. The word God has lost the heartfelt potential.

One of my sannyasins has sent a beautiful anecdote to me. Listen to it, meditate over it.

The anecdote…

Yesterday somebody knocked on my door, and I opened it, and it was God. And he asked me if he could use my bathroom. I said, “Sure, come on in.” When he finally came out of the bathroom, he explained that he had been having some trouble finding somebody who would let him use their bathroom, because most people like to think God never has to go to the bathroom. Then he thanked me and told me he was looking for somebody to be the messiah, and he thought I showed promise. I asked him if he really thought so. And he said he liked my bathroom.

God is eccentric, otherwise why should he create such an eccentric world? But theologians have killed him completely. They cannot think that he needs a bathroom, there is no provision in heaven for that. He simply sits on his throne, he never goes to the bathroom. An inhuman God is a dead God.

God has to be made alive again, he has to be brought home. Then your heart will start throbbing for him. If you drop theology, then religion is beautiful, but if theology is always there between you and religion, then the theology is ugly, and it makes religion look ugly also.

[I feel that the word God has no heartfelt potential, yet the sky and the plants can bring me to my knees. And there is a heartache for something unknown.]

- That’s good. That’s how one should approach God, without theology. Don’t use even the word God, there is no need because the word God is not God. The word love is not love – drop the word, just carry the innermost core of it, the significance of it, the song of it. That’s the only real way to enter into his temple – nature, the trees, the birds, the sun and the stars. He is all around you, calling you in many, many ways. Don’t go to the church. That is the last place you can hope for him to visit. Last! Maybe in some crisis, but otherwise not.

He’s alive in the flowers, he’s alive in the rainbows, he’s alive in the birds. Listen to him. In fact if you learn how to listen, you cannot avoid him for long. Love – if you know how to love, you cannot escape from him for long. Love is his shrine, and listening is the way to help him come into you.

There is an anecdote in the annals of Hasidism…

“Where is the dwelling of God?” This was the question with which the Rabbi of Coates surprised a number of learned men who happened to be visiting him. They laughed at him. “What a thing to ask, Rabbi. Is not the whole world full of his glory?” Then the Rabbi answered his own question. “God dwells wherever man lets him in.”

Let him in. He is knocking at your doors, allow him in. You need not go anywhere. Just relax, trust. His hand is already searching you. Just allow him to find you, and immediately a great transformation happens.

So that is the right way. [The sky and the plants can bring me to my knees, and there is a heartache for something unknown.]

- Yes, God is the eternally unknown. Even by knowing him, one never knows him; even by knowing him, he remains unknown. His unknowability is his mystery. And it is good that man cannot know him, otherwise he will become part of science, otherwise he will be just caught in a test-tube somewhere in a lab. And you know what scientists can do. They will torture him if they can find him. They will poke him from here and there to find out secrets, just as they are torturing monkeys and other animals. They will torture God if they can find him.

No, God can never become knowledge. The word science means knowledge. God can never become knowledge and can never become science. He is not a riddle to be solved, he is a mystery to be lived, a dance to be danced, a song to be sung, a love to be dissolved in. Yes, you can come to feel him, but you can never come to know him. The unknown God is the only God there is.

There is a story about St. Paul…

When he came to Athens to the Greek world to preach Christianity, he was very much surprised. In the center of Athens there was a temple dedicated to the Unknown God. There was no image; the temple was absolutely empty and silent. There was no one inside it. Just on the door of the temple there was an inscription: Dedicated to the Unknown God. And people used to come to pray there, to feel God there. There was no priest, and there was no theology and no philosophy around it. St. Paul destroyed it because he started teaching people, and he laughed at the stupidity of this temple. He is reported to have said that it was absolute foolishness. How can you love an unknown God? Here he was, and he would show them the known God. God had become known in Jesus Christ.

He was thinking that he was doing a great service to humanity, but he is one of the greatest criminals. He destroyed the concept, or no-concept, of an unknown God. That is the only God there is. He may have been reflected in the eyes of Jesus but he still remains unknown. In fact, by knowing him, he is not known, you also become part of his mystery and become unknown. Jesus has become a mystery by knowing him – not that he has become known through Jesus. There is no way. He is so vast it is impossible to put him down as a formula, as a theory, as a dogma, as a creed.

Forget the word God. Don’t make that your obsession. It has nothing to do with God. You can drop the word. Dropping the word will be helpful because with that word all that theologians have done up to now will be dropped. You just look around, look into the eyes of a child, or into the eyes of your beloved, your mother, your friend – or just feel a tree. Have you ever hugged a tree? Hug a tree. And one day you will come to know that it is not only that you have hugged the tree but that the tree also responds, the tree also hugs you. Then for the first time you will be able to know that the tree is not just the form, it is not just a certain species the botanists talk about, it is an unknown God – so green in your courtyard, so full of flowers in your courtyard, so close to you, beckoning you, calling you again and again.

Forget the word. Forget all words. If you can dedicate your being to the unknown, that is the best dedication possible.

Theologians, priests, and people who do the business of religion have different things in their minds. They are not concerned with you or with God. Religion has become a great investment. In fact, it is the biggest trade in the world. No millionaire is so rich – and he cannot be – as churches are. No company – Burma Shell or Standard Oil – is so rich, they cannot be. When religion becomes an investment, then there are other reasons than religious, other considerations.

I have heard an anecdote…

It happened in a Jewish temple. Jewish temples and synagogues do not pass the plate as do the Christian churches, consequently they have to raise money in other ways. One of them is the sale of tickets for reserved seats for the high holy days when business is best. On one holiday a young man went to the synagogue in Philadelphia to look for his uncle. The guard refused him admittance because he had no ticket. “Look,” the youngster said, “I must see my uncle. It is very important.” “Not a chance,” said the guard. “Everybody says that. Nobody gets in here without a ticket.” But the boy pleaded, “It is a matter of life and death. Please, I will only be two minutes.” “Well okay, if it is so important,” the guard said. “But don’t let me catch you praying.”

This can happen in this ashram also. This happens always. Because whenever something of the unknown descends on the earth, immediately man’s cunning mind starts changing it into a commodity that can be sold in the market. Immediately the profit motive comes in.

The word God, the churches, the temples, the synagogues, they have become marketplaces. You cannot find your heart there. The only way to find your heart is to seek the unknown again. You will have to move alone, you will have to go alone. You cannot follow a crowd. If you follow a crowd, you will reach some temple, or some synagogue, or some church. If you want to find the wild God, the God of this universe, the unity, the cosmos, then you will have to seek on your own, alone. Pray to a tree, pray to a river, pray to a rock. Feel, there is no need for words. Let your heart communicate. Melt yourself into the world, and let the world melt into you. This communion is prayer.

The person who has asked the question will be helped if he moves on the path of love. Zen will not be helpful for him. He has a very feeling heart. Listen to the heart.

Many other questions are there, questions about making a synthesis of love and meditation, of heart and mind, of thought and feeling because many people would like to move on both the ways together.

Synthesis comes, but you cannot make it. If you follow the path of meditation, one day you will attain to love as a consequence. If you follow the path of love, one day you will attain to meditation as a consequence. Synthesis comes, but you will have to follow one path. If you try to follow two, you will be in confusion. Synthesis comes at the end on its own accord, so don’t be worried. It is always so: if meditation happens, love is bound to happen. If love does not happen, then that simply shows meditation has not happened yet. If love happens, meditation also happens as a shadow. If meditation has not happened through love, then your love is not yet real. If it has not happened yet, you may be thinking about it, but you have not moved into the world of love. So don’t be worried about synthesis. You cannot make a synthesis. It is not for you to worry about it. Follow one, whichever feels more close to you.

There are a few questions which ask, “Both seem to be almost fifty-fifty, so what to do?” If both seem fifty-fifty, then Zen is your way. Because a person who cannot decide is not the man of the heart; a person who cannot decide is the man of the mind. If it is heart, it is always decisive. Have you ever fallen in love with two women together, fifty-fifty? If you fall that way, then one thing is certain, it is not love. There may be other considerations. One is rich, another is a daughter of a prime minister or something like that. Love is not a consideration. If love is the consideration, then immediately you choose one, then there is no problem.

So if you have a problem to decide, then it is decided: you are the mind type, you will have to follow Zen. If you can decide, then good; if you cannot decide, then take it for granted that the very doubt, the indecisiveness, shows that you are a mind type, thinking, doubting, analyzing, thinking about pros and cons. And then your greed says, “Is there not a way to make a compromise of both?”

Remember, compromise is not a synthesis. Compromise is a dead thing; synthesis is organic unity. You can make a compromise, but through compromise nobody has ever grown; you cannot make a synthesis, it comes.

You start growing on one path because both the paths use different devices, not only different, diametrically opposite. If you try to make a compromise, it will be impossible because one goes to the south, another goes to the north. So one leg will be going to the south, another will be going to the north. You will not be able to reach, you will be divided, you will become split. In making the compromise, you will become a schizophrenic. That’s how the human mind has become schizophrenic, split.

Don’t bother about compromise. It always comes. Those who have attained through zazen have attained to the same love as those who have reached through devotion, bhakti.

A man, a Christian, came with the Bible to a Zen master and started reading the Sermon on the Mount. After a few lines the master said, “Stop, there is no need. Whosoever has said these words is a buddha.” He had never known anything about the Bible, he had never heard anything about Jesus, he used to live in a faraway cave, completely out of the society. But he said, “No need to read it anymore. Even one sentence is enough. It has the taste of the sea. Whosoever has said this is a buddha – is enlightened.” If you ask Buddha, Meera is enlightened, Chaitanya is enlightened. If you ask Meera and Chaitanya, Buddha is enlightened, Bodhidharma is enlightened.

Let me put it in this way. If you follow love, devotion, surrender, one day you will suddenly find you are full of meditation. If you follow meditation, one day you will find the beloved has come, he has knocked at the door.

Enough for today.